A Hole In The Sea
by Zagzagael
Summary: AU Davy Jones was a man at one time in his existence. After centuries captaining The Flying Dutchman can he find peace in the 21st Century through the love of a woman?
1. Chapter 1

The tattoo gun whirred and her skin beneath its needles burned and tingled numbly. She could feel her hot blood cooling as it ran in thin rivulets down her arm. She had her eyes closed and was concentrating on being other places; thinking of the strange lure the sea had upon her senses, longing for the rocking of the ship, tasting the salted air on her open mouth, the punctuated cries of the seabirds. It was a one week countdown before she boarded the R/V Dreadnought for month-long exploration and she could think of little else.

She had a tattoo to commemorate each long journey out since finishing her degree in Oceanography; nine tattoos in five years. And all of them clearly indicated her reverence for the sea and its creatures.

The gun was lifted and the work blotted.

"How're you doing, Mariana?" Greg leaned in close and whispered this softly.

She sighed and opening her eyes looked at the artist. "I'm okay. Is it finished then?" He smirked and shook his head no. "It has to be finished today, Greg. Has to. I'm leaving in less than a week and I want it healed up."

He nodded. "You're the boss." He put the gun on the tray beside him and flexed his fingers. "Where are you off to this time?"

"Cape Agulhas. Just off the tip of South Africa. More rogue wave running." She craned her neck trying to see the work completed on her left shoulder. She reached a tentative hand up and Greg batted it away, smiling. She pouted at him, "How does it look?"

Still flexing his fingers he examined his artistry. "My first octopus and he's looking damned good, if I say so myself." He grinned and picked the gun back up, using a foot switch to turn it on and bent over her shoulder intently. The impossibly large and distinctly green-grey octopus inked into her left breast with its thick, long tentacles wrapping and reaching over her shoulder and under her arm and along her collar bone seemed to gaze fiercely back at his creator out of one visible devilfish eye.

Mariana closed her eyes again and felt the pain of the tattooing undulating from her shoulder to her solar plexus, a powerful wave rising to heights nearly unimaginable and she welcomed the opportunity to ride it out.


	2. Chapter 2

The dark waters of his mind beckoned, pulling him under, into the unfathomable depths of his thoughts, descending deeper than even the gaping wound of the Mariana Trench. How many souls had he collected now? How many decades of servitude had he extracted from each drowned man? How many more crews would serve The Flying Dutchman under his fearsome command before he could finally rest in his own watery grave, the welcomed dissolution of self leaving nothing but bits and pieces of broken shell?

Face down on the floor of his cabin he wept tears of fresh water and they were as bitter to him as salt water tears are to a mortal man. They stung his face and his tentacles recoiled and he felt nausea rising within him, a wave that signaled he would be sick again, but he spent a moment marveling at the contained ocean at the center of his body. At the center of all living beings, he pondered. And the pondering of it seemed to lull the waters upon which his ship was sailing and the churning tide of his stomach contents receded and he slung out one arm in grateful support against the wooden planks and steadied himself. Why had he agreed to a drinking game of liar's dice? Was he really so bloody bored or had he thought that out-drinking the crew would somehow return him, temporarily though it would be, to the raucous days gone now by a century? He truly could not remember what he had been thinking nine days before, when the game had begun. He winced at the memory of it, his tentacles drooping symbiotically.

He had been dreading this drying out period – he knew, intimately, the taste of melancholia and he would rather retch chum for hours than be forced to swallow the regret, remorse and guilt fed to him by this hangover. But there was, apparently, no escape from the foul feast and he pulled himself to his one man knee and bent his crab leg behind him, and looked out of one barely opened eye for his cane. He spied it half beneath his bunk and feeling more fool than folly, he scuttled over to it and heaved his massive bulk up to his feet. He swayed and again welcomed the wave of nausea, but it rolled deeper into his guts and he swept a weary hand across his face. Where was his tricorn?


	3. Chapter 3

"Anchors aweigh," Mariana thought to herself, listening to the crew sing, and smiled. She was on the deck of the R/V Dreadnought, the 185 foot research vessel she had known intimately since graduate school. She stood now, barefooted, feeling it pull away from the dock, her eyes trained on the distant, unfettered horizon, the white hazy township of Cape Agulhas already forgotten behind her. She had flown in two days before and the unanticipated delay of a day's wait for a calibration instrument to be repaired had been an agony for her. Rather than drinking her flight jag away in the pubs with the team, she had spent the time by the waters edge, collecting shells and strange sea glass that had no reason to be washed ashore in that place. Another fishing trawler had had been lost a fortnight before from the Cape and she walked the beaches scanning the driftwooded debris for any testament to the swallowed ship.

At one point in her wanderings, she came across a patch of exotic day lilies and impulsively picked three and ran into the waves with them, whispered a silent prayer to the drowned fishermen and tossed the blooms into the water. And now she was on those very same waters and yet she exalted. She raised her arms and did a quick pirouette in place. Two of the crew whistled at her. She curtsied prettily and they went back to their rigging.

She was the calm point in the storm that was the Norwegian crew, moving with a practiced sort of tension, a deliberateness of chore and duty. The crew had been together longer than she had been sailing on the Dread and she envied them their sense of purpose. As the ship made way, it seemed to lunge out into the open water with its own sense of anticipation and the men on board felt it too and began their song again. Dag, with his incredible baritone and jaunty roll in his heavy accent led, and the other strong male voices fell in behind.

She closed her eyes and listened as they harmonized. She smiled at their choice of the US Navy theme -

'_Stand Navy out to sea, Fight our Battle Cry;  
We'll never change our course, So vicious foe steer shy-y-y-y.  
Roll out the TNT, Anchors Aweigh. Sail on to Victory  
And sink their bones to Davy Jones, Hooray! _

Anchors Away, my boys, Anchors Aweigh.  
Farewell to foreign shores, We sail at break of day-ay-ay-ay.  
Through our last night on shore, Drink to the foam,  
Until we meet once more. Here's wishing you a happy voyage home.'

She opened her eyes and moved up against the starboard edge of the ship. Dag came up beside her and she glanced over at his mischievously smiling face. She knew what he wanted.

"Let's see it, then," he said, winking.

She was wearing a pair of cut-off jeans and a tank top so she was well aware that he had already seen most of the new skin art, but she obligingly tugged the thin strap over her left shoulder aside and let him peek down at the magnificent octopus. He stepped back quickly.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He shook his head, but his eyes were troubled. "Blackfisk." He stepped back another step.

She frowned at him. "Blackfisk?"

He nodded slowly with a strange deliberation, his glance flitting from her own gaze to that of the fierce-eyed tattooed octopus. His already pale face had drained of all colour and his white-blonde crewcut seemed suddenly sharp as dried coral.

"Dag, what's wrong? You look as though you've seen a ghost," the unsettling chill in his sky blue eyes passed through her, a cold wind.

He blinked, then closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was no longer looking at her, but rather over her shoulder at the quickly diminishing coastline. He took another step away from her and turned and disappeared below.


	4. Chapter 4

"Captain Jones," it was the hissing slur of the bosun, just outside the closed door of his cabin.

Davy squared his shoulders and took a firm step forward, yes, he was feeling much more himself with the onset of the evening. A good turn around the deck, in the inky black night would cast the last of his foul mood from him. He yanked the door open and smirked as the foreman jumped.

"Cap'n, I been doing as ye told, yet the crew is needing to see ye," he growled but bent his head respectfully.

Jones returned the growl with a wet, sneering sound of acknowledgement. "Aye, I was going above just now, as ye see."

The bosun didn't step aside, instead holding up the cat-o-nine tails, "We've got a situation, cap'n, with the new man."

Davy's eyes narrowed dangerously and several bearded tentacles flicked wickedly across his shoulder. He pushed past the bosun and grunted a command that was implicitly understood as the two of them made their way up to the deck.

The sailor in question was standing beneath the raised mizzen mast looking back into the black darkness from which the Dutchman had come, his back to the milling crew, his shoulders set in a way that Davy recognized. He wanted to simply close his eyes and sigh, but he cursed himself instead and shook himself mentally. What was happening to him?

He roared out loud, "Mister Greyling!" A vile sense of satisfaction swept through him as he saw the man's shoulders slump and the tell-tale racking sobs tremble across his back. Davy sneered down at the grimacing bosun beside him.

"Mister Greyling, I'm speaking to you and I expect you to turn around and pay me attention." His voice whipped across the cold night air and the man's head snapped back as though he had been hit. He turned, his head hanging down, but his fisted hands belied his surrender.

"That's a bit better. Look at me."

Slowly he raised his head, looking at Jones from under lowered brows. His face was streaked with tears and his lips twitched from the effort of holding still. The crew roared in mocking laughter. The man set his mouth firmly and his brows fell even lower over his stormy eyes.

"Oi, Cap'n, he's bawling like a little girl, he is!" A sailor more crab than man had scurried in close and peered up into the other man's face before scurrying back into the crowding crew.

Leaning on crab leg and cane, Davy approached, his gait filled with menace and the crew quieted. He came in very close to the other man and felt the fear and horror roll off him in despairing waves. "Regrettin' yer choice, then is it?" his voice too smooth, too calm.

The man twitched and Jones let out a wicked laugh which the crew echoed. With a vicious swing of his head, the pirates quieted immediately. Davy stepped back theatrically. "Ye can wallow in regret and remorse, Mister Greyling, but it makes it no easier on yerself. Ye'll have one hundred years of it no matter."

Greyling lunged for Jones and the captain's arm came up and blocked him, with a heave he threw him against the mast. A low rumble moved through the crew. The man righted himself and crouched low, the fear gone now, replaced with fury. "One hundred years! An eternity of damnation upon this cursed ship. Why me? Why couldn't I have just been left to drown? Why am I being punished? Is the Hell?"

Davy leaned in towards him and with a nod of his head, two of the pirates moved in quickly and caught the man fast by both arms. He struggled and Jones chuckled dryly. "An eternity? Is that what ye said, Greyling? Ye think a hundred years of service is eternal damnation? This pitiful squalling is for a debt nearly the length of a man's lifetime?" He leaned in even closer and spittle flew with every word. "Ye have no idea what eternal damnation is," he snarled low. "Ye will be gone and all but forgotten; this crew will lie down in the bed of the sea and sleep for eternity. But not I, Mister Greyling. The Dutchman can be splintered upon the rocks, hidden beneath silt and barnacles, pieces washed ashore which then are fed to a bonfire, and I will remain. The sea will dry, her floor become a desert, the sky cloudless with no rain, and I will be left standing on that sandy wasteland. That is eternal damnation. You're not in Hell when you're serving upon The Dutchman but I cannot say the same for my own obligations to her."

Davy stepped back suddenly. He swung his broad shoulders about and stared vacantly out into the dark night. The waves lapping at the sides of his ship was the only sound in the eerie quiet. A cold and heavy weight settled in his guts.

With a sputtering, he shook himself and took a dangerous sideways step back towards the sailor, "I have no idea why some men make their dying way to The Dutchman's deck. The rest of your crew did drown in the sea and they've long this fortnight been feeding the fish, but here ye stand. Why is that," he turned dramatically to the crew and they nodded their own question, "I wonder it, myself."

Jones made a quick flourishing movement with a tentacled hand and leaned back in towards Greyling. "Tell me, Mister Greyling, did ye not murder a man over the love of a woman?" Greyling flinched and stared in wide-eyed horror at the captain. He shook his head, his mouth oh-ing open. "Come now, Mister Greyling, did you not drive a blade into his belly and leave him to bleed out upon the sands where he fell?" He was shaking his head furiously now. "And Mister Greyling, where is that woman now? The woman you abandoned with your child in her belly?"

A lamenting cry rose from the crew and it tore through Davy's mind. "If ye kill in the name of love, ye should cut out your own tongue before ye'd ever curse that name."

Greyling had slumped in the grasp of the two sailors. "Bosun," said Davy, his voice as cold as the deepest ocean depths. The bosun stepped forward, the whip still in his hand. "Give our Mister Greyling a reason to cry for his soul."

A flurry of movement had the man stripped to the waist and lashed to the mast, the bosun pulled his arm back and let the braided whip ends fly. Greyling screamed. Davy stepped back, "She killed herself, didn't she, Mister Greyling?"

Davy Jones walked away, the man's screams echoing across the darkened waters of the sea. His head was pounding and somewhere in God's green earth, his heart was aching.


	5. Chapter 5

"I've been wanting to tell you how gorgeous your hair is. So many young women don't wear it long like that these days." It was an after dinner lull in the far more taxing discussion about rogue waves and the fishing trawler that had just been lost off the cape the month before. Mariana smiled at the speaker who was sitting beside her. He was the local expert they had procured for the team and she had just met him three days before, when they had launched. He continued, "The cost in shampoo must be outrageous."

"More than a bar of soap, that's for sure," she leaned toward him, smiling openly. "You say "young" as though you're old, Charles."

"Older than you, missy. I'll be fifty-eight next month. And you can't be more than?"

She couldn't decide if his fatherly approach was flirtatious or friendly but he was attractive and attentive and she saw no reason to interpret him negatively, "I'm thirty-two, actually." She recognized the familiar surprise, "Blessed with a young face, I guess."

He laughed. "But an old soul."

She disagreed, "I don't know if that's true. Sometimes I feel like the entire world is brand new, everything a wonder and a marvel. I don't feel…old, at all. I mean in a wise way." She looked over at Trevor who was obviously eavesdropping on the conversation but talking with Carl, "Or jaded."

"That's fodder for a smallish branch of philosophy that I have no experience with, or perhaps it's the Kabbalists – the question being is the soul who feels wonder, young or perceptive, and the soul who feels wisdom, cocky or ancient?"

She knitted her brow, then smiled broadly and shrugged her shoulders, "Are you asking me or just offering that up as food for thought?"

"Whichever feels right, I suppose." He laughed and reached out for one of her two, thick braids, "May I? They're thick as a man's wrist."

She nodded slowly, the heavy braid hanging between his hands like a blonde rope. He gently laid it back over her shoulder. "And all of these tattoos. You are a very interesting woman, Mariana."

"The circus called, Mari, they want to know if you'd be willing to join up when you're back on shore," Trevor said this to no one in particular across the stacks of dirty dinner plates as he poured out a steaming cup of coffee and leaned back in his chair.

An uncomfortable silence fell among the team of scientists. Trevor cocked a brow and mock questioned with, "'The Real Live Tattooed Fish Girl?'"

Several of the men chuckled. Charles said, "Why fish, though? Why not 'the Living Aquarium?'"

Mariana shook her head as Trevor glanced over at her, but he looked back at Charles and smiled indulgently, "Because that's our girl Mariana, cold as a fish."

The silence was thick and the comment hung in the air, a challenge and a dismissal.

Mariana nodded and pushed her chair back. She stood, "Thanks for dinner, Danny," the cook looked over at her, "it was really good." She looked around the table, "I'm going below, where the drinks aren't caffeinated and the company," she put a light hand on Charles' shoulder, "for the most part, far more interesting. Goodnight."

Trevor dropped the front legs of his chair back onto the floor and pursed his lips.

"You should have been a sailor, Mari! You were born too late," he called this to her retreating back as she rounded the door. "More sailor than scientist," he mumbled. He took a long pull on his coffee and looked around the table at the lowered gazes of the men, "So, Charles, how do the widows of these drowned fishermen fare financially? There must be a soroptimist organization in the Cape that helps?"

'**_Your pretty little hands,_****_  
_****_Can't handle our tackle,_****_  
_****_And your pretty little feet_****_  
_****_On our top mast can't go;_****_  
_****_And the cold stormy weather,_****_  
_****_Love, you ne'er can endure,_****_  
_****_Therefore, dearest Nancy,_****_  
_****_To the seas do not go.'_**

Mariana heard the lyrics to "Fare Thee Well, Nancy" as the haunting song poured out of the boisterous galley and into the narrow hallway. She shook her head. She could imagine an 18th Century Trevor in a high collar and the same self-importance sternly dissuading his young betrothed from a life at sea. She stopped on the edge of the doorway; Dag was perched on the back of a chair, feet planted firmly on the seat, singing. He had a beer glass in one hand and his arm slung around Gunnar who was accompanying with a soft and mournful harmonica.

She stepped away from the door, and pushed her shoulders up against the wall. She raised a trembling hand to her forehead, covered her eyes with long fingers and wept silently.


	6. Chapter 6

_Rocks sharp as the teeth of a Great White bit at him, ripping into his shoulder, snarling at his scissoring thighs, but he swam on. The shore was too close now, too close. He lunged for it, his strong legs kicking him forward. He raised his left arm and brought it down again and twisted his torso into the stroke and a jagged rock was there, the weight of his own body driving it up into his chest, splitting ribs apart and he screamed out, jerking himself free. A wave caught him, kidnapping flesh and bone, and he went limp in the force of it. Spiraling down into the green depths, his lungs heaving and heaving against the splintered bone cage._

_He jackknifed his body and brought both hands up over the wound and the hot rush of his own blood through his netted fingers and into the cold sea water enraged him. The sea would have him dead before it ever let him reach the shore. He wrenched himself back up to the surface and swallowed water and air and kicked again for the shallow depths. And then he felt the sandy ocean floor beneath his knees and another wave pushed him forward and he fell onto his shoulder and the side of his face was buried in pebbles and sand. _

_On all fours, he crawled out of the ocean. A woman was waiting for him there. Beckoning to him. He stumbled to his feet and opened his arms wide but the gaping hole in his chest hemorrhaged him to his knees._

With an inhuman howl of pain, Davy sat bolt upright in his bunk, a shivering tremor ran through his body and he moaned out loud again. He strained his eyes into the dark shadows of his cabin, his breath coming in great chuffs of exhalations; her image seemed burned into his retinas. Who was she, her Godiva locks swirling around her body, her arms opened to receive him? And when was the last time he had dreamed of himself in the shape of a man?


	7. Chapter 7

She was leaning into the triangulated corner of the prow, her eyes closed, face lifted into the light of the rising sun, the sea spray a veil of tears. Her hair was unbound and the weight of it cascaded like a wave from her shoulders, down over her back, the wind was whipping through the ends and they danced around her hips. She pushed herself further into the corner, bracing her bare feet on the deck, her arms stretched back along the railings, long-fingered hands lightly curved around the metal.

A throat cleared behind her and she turned, with a bit of hesitation. It was Charles and he held a steaming coffee mug in each hand, offering her one. She dried her face on her open hands, then took one of the mugs and smiled at him under lowered lashes.

"Wasn't sure how you take it, but I assumed cream no sugar."

She nodded and sipped.

"A morning constitutional? Or a benediction?" he inquired, indicating the prow with a bend of his head. "Or perhaps you're masquerading as siren figurehead?"

"Do you ever practice small talk, Charles?" she laughed at him.

"Don't see much point in it. We've got a limited amount of time in every venture of our lives and why waste it by blathering inanities?"

She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head sideways, as if making a decision. "Okay, then. I love the sea. I love it more than any other thing I've ever known or considered. It," she looked away from him, her gaze tracing the thin line between the water and the sky, "calls to me." She looked back at him, her light blue eyes imploring him to understand, "It calls to me, Charles, in a way I can't even begin to define or explain. Its creatures speak my name and I can understand their language, the ocean floor beckons like a well-dressed bed at the end of a long day, the water," she closed her eyes, an ecstatic rush, "being in the water feels like being in love."

"Have you always felt this way?"

"Yes, always. My family is quite fond of telling people that I could swim before I could walk and leaving the beach at the end of the day was a trial for them. I couldn't be consoled. I grew up in an ocean side town on the Atlantic." A conspirational laugh, "The first time I saw the Pacific, the white sands and the blue see-through water, I thought I would die of joy. I could imagine diving in and never surfacing again," she paused, suddenly uncomfortable.

But he laughed and nodded, "Definite lovesickness."

She exhaled. "And now all those feelings make sense. Here I am doing what I love, supporting myself but also, I hope, making a difference. It's all good."

He raised one eyebrow and inclined his head in agreement. "Aren't we the lucky ones, indeed."

They both leaned starboard, elbows on the railing, and sipped at their coffees.

"Mariana, you can tell me it's none of my business because it's not, but what is the story between you and Trevor? Why does he include you in the team if he can't seem to be civil to you?"

"Well, he thinks I'm one of the best in a very specialized field of marine life trauma, doesn't he?" She drew the corner of her lower lip in under her strong, white teeth and quickly blinked a sudden, thin sheen of tears to dryness.

Charles grimaced, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. It really is none of my business."

"He can't seem to forgive me for refusing to marry him."

Charles grunted and with a quick flick of his wrist, emptied his cup into the ocean. "Now that woke me up." He turned towards her.

She smiled sadly at him and nodded. "We lived together all through grad school, met in our undergraduate program. He wasn't always so…dry. He had a lot of passion, but I believe that too much knowledge drained it out of him. Somehow. Do you know what I mean? That reducing and reducing and reducing something eventually leaves nothing of the original fantastic equation?"

"I don't believe everything can be mathematically reduced back to a prime," Charles said softly.

"I took this required History of Art class as an undergrad and it was like that. Explaining everything, telling secrets that I'm certain that artists would never have wanted shared, gossip about love affairs, sexual dysfunctions, it was horrid. Breaking things down to elements, this hand pose, that lighting, these colours. It ruined every single piece of art we studied. Just wrecked it all." She took a long pull on her coffee. "I think that happened to Trevor in grad school. Well, I think two things happened to him. The first was that he found out he could reduce every mystery with some scientific explanation and then he became convinced that through science one can control the mysterious. It's just an awful way to exist. I believe he think if he can deduce the reason behind rogue waves then he can somehow, in some way, harness such immense power."

She put her foot up on the railing and pointed at the sawfish tattoo circling her calf. "This was my first tat, the summer he went to Florida to work with a team of developers who wanted to put condos out into a bay, but the small-toothed sawfish would have to be sacrificed. We had a terrible fight about it and I ended up on a sawtooth conservation team in the same area."

Charles laughed softly.

"It wasn't funny at the time," she was laughing now. "He flipped out when he saw it. He told me all I needed was dreadlocks and I could join the crew of the Rainbow Warrior."

Charles shrugged in agreement.

"I knew at that moment, we were doomed."

"But?"

"But?" she looked confused. "Oh, yes, well, but. In the way of all doomed romances, we stayed together for another two years absolutely hating one another. And he tried to convince me that if I would just get pregnant, settle down, let him support me."

"With the blood of the sawfish on his hands," Charles interjected.

"Support me with the blood of the sawfish on his hands that I would be happy and could concentrate on making a real difference in marine biology."

"Ouch. A real difference."

"We tormented one another like that for a long, long time. But I was the one who had to walk away. It was terribly emotional. And by that time we were both committed to this team and to running rogue waves," she trailed off quietly, finishing her coffee.

He reached out with one finger and traced a long, thick tentacle the octopus had wrapped over the ball of her shoulder. "And this one?"

She gently moved out from under his hand.

"That work has nothing to do with Trevor, actually."

He waited.

"I had the most intense dream about an octopus the night I got the call about this voyage," she said clearly, but the words sounding a confession.

"Must have been some dream."

She nodded and looked back out at the sea.

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This Chapter dedicated to Ladymouse for her encouraging concrit!


	8. Chapter 8

Thump, step, thump, step.

The crew was growing accustomed to the pacing of their captain, an insomniac's stride. Below the waves, the relentless cadence kept time in their watery dreams while they slept, but upon the water, the night crew in their day-lit bunks tossed and turned as the rhythm syncopated with the sea. For decades, their early-morning dreams had been filled with the sounds of the captain's organ, a daily lament, but now it was ominous in its neglect, its silence louder than its dirgeful chords had ever been.

Thump, step, thump, step.

Davy walked to the side of The Dutchman and stood still for a moment's rest. He had lost count now, but he felt as though he'd been awake for days and days. The dreams were beginning to unnerve him and he could feel the restless tension they wrought within his thoughts working its way through his body. The venom of a box jellyfish. He desperately needed to sleep, to close his eyes and float adrift.

"Bosun!" he called.

The creature appeared almost instantly beside him. Inexplicably, a great welling of respect for his boatswain surged inside him and he nearly smiled down at the spiny-faced sailor.

"How long have ye been at the beck and call of The Dutchman then?"

Confusion washed over the smaller man's face, the spines of his hair rose and fell, "Cap'n, I've served you and she for nearly a lifetime now."

Jones squinted his eyes and looked back to the horizon lost behind the glowering embers stoked by the rising sun. "How long?"

"Eighty-six years, seven months and fourteen days."

Jones nodded and shook his head, his own tentacles flicking to life. "That's good. That's good. You've done a fine job of it."

The venomous spines of the boatswain's hair straightened and quivered.

"Now then," Jones voice sharp in the morning air, "Why don't we have a balladeer aboard? I find I'm in need of a song."

"We've never had a balladeer, sir, as long as I've been on board."

Jones swung around and glared at the busy crew, his gaze falling on one then on another. "Greeneye," he announced and the crew froze.

A piratey bowfin edged forward, "Cap'n Jones."

"I dare say I've heard ye hum beneath your breath as ye go about your work, sailor." The other man nodded hesitantly. "I'm in need of a song."

A wicked, toothy grin broke across Greeneye's angular face and the long fin down his back arched and folded and arched again. He began singing,

"_Eighteen bitter stripes I gave him  
Which did cause the purple gore to run  
None there was that dare relieve him  
Such a thing was never known _

When five days I thus had kept him  
He to languish did begin  
Praying for a little water  
I some vinegar gave to him

The poor soul requested to drink it  
As I had proposed when I had done  
I made him drink the purple gore  
That from his bleeding wound did run"

With every bit of internal strength he could summon, Jones kept himself from staggering back against the railing. The song was "Captain James," the dirge about the long-since-hanged murderous sea captain. The crew had begun working with a renewed fervor as the bowfish pirate warmed to his dark tale. Davy nodded at his waiting bosun and with one last look over his shoulder at the now visible horizon line, he went below.

He stood in the curved doorway of his cabin, the organ at the far end of the room, waiting like an accusation. He turned his face away from it and walked slowly to his bunk, pausing by the desk to set his hat with deliberation down upon its barnacled surface. He lay down, fully clothed, the collar of his great coat forcing his head to an awkward side, pinning his crab arm beneath the sheer weight of him. The meerschaum pipe in his pocket digging into his hip. He didn't move, but instead closed his eyes and listened as the song from above seemed to sink through the very planks of the deck and down, down, down into his cabin. He murmured along, he knew this stanza –

_How can I now ask for mercy  
When no mercy I would afford  
On a poor distressed creature  
Yet some mercy show me Lord_

And finally, the sea rocked himself to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Mariana was walking back and forth between the mounds of nets and fish and bits and pieces of sea life that was hauled aboard the Dreadnought every morning. The crew fished for its dinner and the nets were a fertile ground for her research. Two sailors wearing only cut-off breeches and wielding clubs slogged into the writhing mass of tuna and deftly knocked the larger fish unconscious and with an impressive strength flung the lifeless forms behind them where they were retrieved and killed and cleaned by two waiting crewmen. Danny stood nearby, smoking and supervising the filleting. A huge aluminum cooler sat gaping open with bleeding, slick-skinned carcasses stacked one upon the other within.

Charles and Trevor were leaning against the railing watching the morning's catch, Trevor calling out to Mariana whenever he saw something of particular interest tumble out of the nets.

The railing gate was swung wide and the tuna pushed back into the sea, where their silver bodies slapped furiously on the surface of the water before they flashed into the green depths, the small school reforming as the fish realized their freedom. Mariana watched them go, silently cheering them on. She smiled and walked over to the two scientists as the nets sank again below the waves. "Easier than diving for evidence." She smiled.

"What have you found this morning?" Trevor asked.

"Nothing too definitive. I really need to put forward the observation that schooling fish, at least, don't get as stressed as the less mobile lifeforms," she wiped her hands dry on her shorts. "I'm wondering if they…somehow…know about the impending wave and move out of the area. Like birds will roost before a storm."

"Why do you think these animals are under stress, Mariana?" Charles asked.

"I've seen it, actually. The rogue wave seems to be akin to an earthquake, but with reverberating affects that last much, much longer. Imagine fish inside an aquarium after it's shaken. That entire area of the sea is affected, whereas on land the actual echo, if you will, of the upheaval is contained within the earth itself. I'm betting moles, earthworms, ant colonies are all similarly traumatized."

Charles nodded thoughtfully and asked, "What signs?" Trevor turned an abrupt shoulder and stared pointedly as the crew began reeling in one of the nets.

"Everything from grotesquely apparent, cephalods chewing off tentacles and shoals of broken crabs slowly dying, to less obvious stressors, devoured egg sacs, lobsters attacking one another."

At that moment a loud cry went up from the sailors. One of the nets was being hauled out of the sea and it was spinning frantically, violence without sound. The crane arm creaked with the weight and movement of it, sea water arcing in great, thick jets out over the surface of the water and over the boat as the net was brought in. It hung suspended over the deck, men scattering beneath it, the immense creature inside moving with wild force.

"Oh my god, it's an octopus!" Mariana was running towards the net. "Put him back into the sea! Gunnar, lower the net back into the water. Release him! He'll destroy himself!"

Trevor was beside her now, "Wait, wait, don't let it go. Lower the net to the deck!"

"No!" Mariana shouted over the yelling of the sailors. But it was too late, Trevor's order had been given and the net crashed down onto the planks, spilling open, an octopus larger than a man slipped and flopped out of the rope cage, a tuna held fiercely by one tentacle. A mako shark was squirming upon the body of the octopus.

"It's going to kill him, push them back over into the water!" She was screaming now. She rushed at the tangle of tentacles and fins and thrashing tail, Dag caught her by the arm and pulled her away. One large tentacle snaked out and slapped the wet deck. The mako, with gore-dripping jaws, shook itself loose and slid across the deck, another tentacle reached for it, wrapping fiercely around its tail and the shark was pulled back with a spine-bruising crush.

"Push him over, push him over," Mariana broke free from Dag's grip and rushed again towards the creatures.

Sailors were everywhere and the dark blue mako was pulled off the octopus but with a cartlidgean grace he turned and had one of the sailor's ankles in his jaws. The man screamed and another rushed in, clubbing at the shark. With a powerful thrust of muscle, the animal hit the deck and slid towards the still-open railing gate and in a flourish of blue and white he was over the side and below the waves. The injured sailor was down, beneath a rush of men.

The massive octopus writhed, undulating pain and fear, the huge eyes rolling in their sockets. Mariana stood beside the animal, shaking.

"Help me, help me to push him into the water," she cried and began to reach down.

Trevor lunged over the bit sailor and grasped her by the shoulders, pulling her away from the octopus, "Mariana, get a grip on yourself. Look at it. It's a perfect specimen. We need it." She was wide-eyed and staring at him, uncomprehending.

"No, Trevor. Let him go. Let him go," she was crying. She looked down at the octopus, "Oh, he's lost a tentacle, he's injured. Something's wrong, he wouldn't be so close to the nets."

Trevor still held fast to her and looked down at the creature. "Yes, something is wrong. That tentacle is gone and two others are badly mauled. It's devouring itself, Mariana. The mako didn't do that. Here's the proof of stress you've been looking for."

"No!" She wrenched herself free and moved back to the octopus. Charles quickly came up on the other side of her and gently took her arm. "It's quite dangerous, Mariana. It's hurt and it's massively huge."

The injured sailor was arm-gurneyed below, a group of men trailing behind. Danny slammed the lid of the cooler shut and with a nod at another sailor, they hoisted it and followed. Every sound suddenly hushed and solemn and a slight breeze carried a cooled sea spray.

Mariana stood shaking her head and sobbing. She went down on her knees beside the chuffing beast and reached out a tentative hand. The octopus stilled beneath her touch. She stroked the taut skin and felt it tremble beneath her fingers. "I want him to go back into the sea."

"No, Mariana." Trevor reached down and yanked her to her feet, "No. You're hysterical and I have no idea why. This animal is going to be euthanized and necropsied."

She pulled herself away from his grip and stood panting. "Don't touch me again," she hissed.

He lowered his hands defensively. "Fine, but get hold of yourself. Immediately."

Charles had moved up next to them, the octopus writhing at their feet.

"What is wrong with you? Are you on your period?" Trevor lowered his voice.

Mariana gasped and Charles shook his head. "Now, Trevor," he began sternly.

"Don't lecture me, Charles. You're here as a guest. She is my employee."

"I won't have you talk to her like that. Get some goddamned manners, man."

"Screw manners, I'm talking professionalism here. It is bad luck to have a woman on board – and this is why," he indicated Mariana with a fierce hand motion.

"You're ridiculous," Charles growled. Trevor cocked his head and began to take a dangerous step towards the other man.

"We can't keep an animal this size alive," Mariana spat this venomously at Trevor.

He narrowed his eyes and stepped back away from both of them. "You're right." He turned to one of the men, standing uncomfortably at the fillet table, "Kill it."

Mariana's head fell forward, her shoulders folded in towards her chest, her arms came up to hold herself. The sailor stepped smartly beside the octopus and quickly plunged his knife between its eyes. Mariana brought her hands up to her face and moaned without a sound.

_Her feet were bleeding; she was treading across the broken bodies of countless crabs, jagged on the ocean floor. His body was in her arms, cradled like a baby and she felt the weight of him, heavy against her breast. Great clots of blood were running over her arms, down her belly, down her legs. She could feel the movement of the sea water around her and she looked up and saw high above, a clear sky through the waves, through the green waters, the surface of the sea a shattered pane of glass. She looked down at the dead octopus in her arms, marveling at how small he was now. Hadn't he been much bigger? She couldn't remember, all she knew was that someone was waiting for her and she was late._

The scream of the siren tore its way through her dreaming mind and her eyes opened instantly. Her heart jack-hammering behind her ribs. A rumble of men running, doors opening and slamming and muffled shouts entered her small cabin. She swung her legs over the edge of the bunk and pressed one hand hard against her chest.

It was the wave alarm.


	10. Chapter 10

Slowly he opened his eyes, his cabin was bathed in the familiar early morning green glow and he breathed in deeply. At last, at last he had slept the night through. A painful stiffness defined his joints, he had slept but he certainly hadn't relaxed. He rolled over onto one massive shoulder and drew his man leg up comfortably and let the melody inside his head begin again. The snatch of song was what had woken him he realized and he closed his eyes to concentrate on it but it became an ungraspable strain. He got up and walked over to the organ.

He sat with a slow deliberation at the instrument and closed his eyes again. He began to coax the haunting aria from the keys and although he did not sing aloud, the words of the song he had never known before moved through him and he played in accompaniment.

_There's always a siren_

_Singing you to shipwreck._

_(don't reach out, don't reach out)_

_Steer away from these rocks_

_We'll be a walking disaster_

_(don't reach out, don't reach out)_

A quick series of raps on the door interrupted the piece, and yet, he marveled at how even the knocking seemed to be in time.

He rose and barked, "Ye may enter" as he walked to his desk, retrieving his hat and turned.

"Haifisch," he acknowledged and sat on the edge of the desk. He fished the pipe out of his coat pocket and peered into the empty bowl. With a quick motion, he pulled a low-slung canister on the desk top over to him and dipped the pipe in, pulling it out brimming with a seaweedy tobacco. "What brings ye here then?"

The sleek, blue-skinned man before him stepped closer, an evil glint in his long, slanted eyes. "Mast- und Schootbruch! I have seen a ship, Kapt'n. And this is what I believe you have been looking for."

Davy cocked his head and nodded his interest. The mako continued.

"From what I know about such things this ship is a research vessel." A sly smile broke the entire width of the pirate's face, teeth gleaming and sharp.

Davy lit the pipe and pulled hard, sensing the poised readiness of the other man. He nodded, "Ye believe this ship is," he paused and spit out the words, "researching something?"

The shark grinned even wider. "Ja. The wave."

"Is this what has happened to mankind then?" Jones stood suddenly and took a fierce step forward, the shark skittered sideways, his toothy smile fading, his eyes wide. "Looking at everything, peering at it all through the grip end of a spyglass, for what purpose?"

"Mein Kapt'n?"

"I must admit, Herr Haifisch, that this quest for," he sneered, "knowledge has me a bit stumped. What do these men actually know outside of their own translation and interpretation? Where are the men who see the sun rise and watch the sun set and ask no more of it? Men no longer are called to sea by her sirens, but rather by their own belief that they can measure her depths and distill her waters. Man now believes he can outdo evolution. Gear nature to their wheel work."

The mako pirate frowned ferociously, what brows he had left furrowing on his broad face.

"Remind me again, Matrose Haifisch, what is that you were doing when you found your way to the Dutchman?"

"I was serving onboard a U-boat, Kapt'n."

"And a U-boat is man's attempt to sail a ship beneath the waves, is that right?"

The other man nodded.

"And tell me," he paused, "was that a successful venture, then?"

--------------------------------

The late afternoon sun hung defeated near the horizon. Davy had been at the helm most of the afternoon, daring the sun to stay put, to keep the day illuminated, to resist the darkling call of the extinguishing waters below. But the celestial body spared him no quarter and he had to remind himself that it was not mocking him with its daily desire to snuff its life. He looked out over the calm waters of the sea, the clear sky above, the gradations of blue and the thin band of white that indicated the place where the ocean met the sky and he exhilarated in it.

With a motion of his hand, a sailor took the wheel and he went below into the hold.

"Manolin," he called softly into the airy darkness of the ship's belly. He stumped across the planked floor and stopped beside a lantern. "Manolin."

The very beam itself which the flickering lantern was affixed to pulled itself free of the structure of the Dutchman and with a weary shake of its craggy head, recognizable features of a face emerged. "Captain," it wheezed.

A brief pause, the moment between breaths, a quiet intake, an exhalation. A thought, a consideration, a decision, introspection and dismissal. A moment opened between the two and Davy stepped into the space.

"I am a man out of time," he began.

"So, it's that you're a man now, is it? I remember when we first met, you told me you were the Devil."

"Better the Devil than God."


	11. Chapter 11

Mariana felt the Dreadnought slip beneath her. And her heart lurched with the movement, a sickening and aluminum taste of panic filling her mouth. She leapt off the bed, barefooted; flannel sleep pants and a tank top her only clothing. Her hair, bound loosely in a single thick braid, whipped over her shoulder and untwisted out of its plait as she pulled her cabin door open and swung around the door frame and into the narrow hallway. The light flickered and went out. And she felt the boat move sternway as though it were a fishtailing automobile on black ice.

With hands outstretched she ran down the hallway and was suddenly thrown into the metal companionway. The vessel came round starboard hard. Her shins barked painfully against a tread and she cried out. She was scooped up from behind and hauled to her feet and a body in front of her reached a strong male hand down and around her bicep and she was being pulled and pushed up the stairs. The acrid smell of cooking oil filled her nostrils and she realized it was Danny behind her. And by the sound of his voice she knew it was Dag in front of her, his grip tight on her arm.

They were shouting to one another in nynorsk but Danny's voice broke as they came up onto the moonlit deck.

Mariana thought her legs would give out. She staggered and then fell to her knees.

A wall of water was rising to an impossible height before the boat.

And the boat was quivering like an injured animal beneath it.

There was no storm, the sky a clear blue-black, the full moon and the stars as sharp as knives. The ocean was a boiling cauldron, waves washing over the railings, crashing upon the deck and rolling off in deadly sheets. The sea had become a violent…

…whirlpool. The Dutchman was being commandeered by a madman captaining a crew of madmen; helmed by pain and rage and despair, she had been set a dizzying course widdershins, wide arcs tightening with each revolution. She flew deep below the surface of the sea.

Each long, banking turn she climbed another league and the water rose with her.

The moonstruck starbolins were howling; an inhuman basso profondus.

One last ambit around the hollowing spool and The Flying Dutchman was up and out of the water, alive in that moment. And Davy stamped down from the wheelhouse deck, eyes wild, mouth gaping open, and made his way up against the railing and there was the other vessel, caught without escape at the base of the wave rising, rising, rising straight up out of the sea. An inverted waterfall that would reach its nightmarish apex and hold and hold and hold fiercely before relinquishing its brief but glorious negation of gravity. And there, just there, the ship, teetering on the lip of…

…a hole in the sea.

Someone screamed. She was knocked against a wall and she pulled herself back to her feet and Trevor was running towards her, away from the great wall of water at his back and she saw his face and looked into his eyes and realized true terror there. His mouth was open and it was his voice screaming. A wave crashed over the side of the boat and knocked him off his feet and, like a great tentacled sea monster, dragged him off the boat and flung his body, arms and legs pinwheeling, into its gaping mouth. Mariana felt her eyes scar themselves open and she could not look away from the spot far out in the darkness where he had disappeared.

Charles staggered up beside her and she felt her head bobbing with a hysteria she could not control and he reached one hand and then another hand out towards her and the boat tipped away from them and he fell and slid and suddenly there was Dag and Charles was beneath his feet, his hands scrabbling against the deck, both men went over the side of the boat now buried beneath the water.

And Mariana tumbled headlong into a madness wrought of the impossible. She looked away from the churning ocean, the railing broken by the bodies of her friends. With a deliberate swiveling of her head she looked at the rogue wave. The ship heaved itself out of the water and slammed back down hullwise, prostrate before the wave.

Mariana began to make her way to the bow of the Dreadnought, beneath the ocean water showering down from the wave above her. She reached down and pulled the tank top over her head and dropped it. She paused and pushed the soaked flannel off her hips and walked out of them. She reached the bow railing and grasped it, pulling herself as close as she could. She hooked one foot into the lower rung of the railing and lifted herself up off the tilting deck, another foot, hooked higher, she was climbing to the top rung. Staring up at the wave towering over her head, up into the sky, she could see the curving edge of it outlined by stars and she realized it was beginning to fall. One more great hoisting effort of herself and she was balanced on the railing. She tore her own gaze away and looked down, into oblivion. And with both arms spread wide and back behind her she leaned over the gaping, open maw in the water, beneath the wave and held still…

…a figurehead carved of alabaster flesh, her hair streaming out behind her like a rebel flag. Captain Davy Jones watched the woman shed her clothing, climb onto the railing, bending forward beneath the wave, a fierce prow.

Above her the rogue wave had begun to crash, tons of water falling like salted rain out of a sea green sky.

In a movement of grace and power, the woman went up on her toes, stretched her arms out as if to embrace the massive wave before her and she leapt off the ship and dove into the hole in the sea.

He gasped.


	12. Chapter 12

I want to pause for a moment in the story and give a big shout out to my faithful readers and reviewers - the stats on this fic are interesting - lots of folks reading the first chapter and then leaving, they don't know the fun they're missing...hehehehehe! So, I'm totally honoured and beholden to those of you who've stuck with it and especially to those who've left me a note letting me know you're here. It's appreciated more than you can know.

I also want to say THANK YOU to Roisin Dubh Memories who has been working on a piece of fanart for the fic! I still haven't been able to see it kicks html wonkiness - but I'm thrilled she's doing it!

Onwards & upwards...

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"D'ye fear Death?" the words tumbled over in his mind, pieces of broken glass pummeled to dullness in the waves. All the sharp and cutting edges gone, the brilliance muted. He scowled.

The crew had retrieved five men and they were slumped, half dazed, more than half drowned, along one railing of the Dutchman. The Dreadnought had been shattered beneath the rogue wave which he himself, Captain Davy Jones, had raised to destroy her, her steel frame twisted beyond recognition, the bodies of her sailors twirling in the eddies of the wave. And destruction tasted glorious, but this time there was a bitter aftertaste, the tang of the dregs swirling in the bottom of the heady drink. It was the vision of the girl, the naked girl with her loose hair, her lithe body outlined against the wall of water as she arced herself into oblivion, swan dove to her own demise, that had soured his victory quaff. And yet he looked with an unrecognized sense of hope down the line of sodden men, wanting to see her, but of course she was not amongst them, how could anyone survive such a leap beneath the wrath of his demon wave.

He stumped down the line of men, his own pirates watching with trepidation. Who would choose death, who would choose this life? There was never any predicting it, all men share the same secrets but each man has his own way of hiding or revealing his truth. And that was part of the game, too. He remembered his own long-since revealed secret, the chest he hid it in, and the key with which he tried so desperately to keep it locked under…He hadn't thought of the stolen heart in nearly a century worth of decades, why was he thinking of it now?

With a fierceness that denied his composure, he reached a tentacled hand down and lifted the first of the men in line to his feet, pushing him hard against the wooden railing as the man's knees buckled. He bent low. "Ye fear death, I see it in yer eyes," he hissed. The man's eyes rolled frantically in their sockets, his mouth gaping. He fainted. Davy released him and he fell with a sickening thud to the deck. Several pirates laughed nervously.

From the corner of his eye, Jones saw one of the Dreadnought's men turn away. Tentacles whipping angrily, he stepped sideways, towards him. The man turned back to find the menacing Captain before him. Jones sneered, "If yer going to be sick, do it over the side of the ship, aye?"

The man looked back at him defiantly, "I'm not going to be sick." Davy inclined his head. "Will you let me attend to him?" the man indicated the other, crumpled on the deck.

"A special pet of yours, is he?" The pirate crew growled an approving laughter.

"Not like that. But I thought if I could offer him…"

Davy cut him off, "Offer him what? Water? A cold rag upon his head? Comfort? Are ye a man of the cloth then? Or do you conceal the blade to help him on his way?"

He stepped forward, his hands raised palms up, "I'm neither assassin nor priest, but I would offer…" he trailed off, taking in the captain, the crew, the barnacled Dutchman rocking on the waves. My name is Charles, he intoned inside his head, you cannot strip me of my humanity. He looked down again at Trevor, I will not fear this, I will not fear this…I will not…

Davy cocked a brow at him and nodded slowly, "It begins to become obvious, does it not? There is no thing you can offer this wretched creature." He moved with a deceptive speed up against Charles' body, he was taller and broader; Charles didn't move away from him. "There is but one thing ye have to offer anyone and that would be your soul to me. Do ye fear death, then?" he whispered down into his face.

Charles swallowed hard but before he could answer a man on the other side of him began to implore the Heavens in wailing nynorsk and Davy was upon him that quickly. Charles turned away and knelt down beside Trevor and put a shaking hand on his cheek, "Trevor," he called hoarsely. His skin blue and cold. Charles heard a low, guttural screaming behind him and looked sideways as the Norse sailor had his throat slit and was pushed dramatically overboard by two Dutchman crewmen. He stood slowly.

Davy swung his head, looking over his shoulder at Charles, "That one found he did not fear Death so much after all." He roared laughter and his crew joined him. Charles looked past him and there was Dag standing beside the cook of the sunken Dreadnought, his gaze clouded, cast within. Charles looked away.

At that moment, a pirate more crab than man clambered over the side of the Dutchman, pincers grabbing the railing, but in his smaller arms, he held Mariana, unconscious. Her head lolling, trailing locks tangling around the pirate's legs as he swung himself onto the deck. With a strange sense of reverence, he bent and laid her down, pooling great handfuls of her wet hair beside her before scrabbling backwards.

The crew of the Dutchman stilled into silence, the drowned men from the Dreadnought, already silent, grew pensive. Davy had gone rigid, even his tentacles motionless. After a long moment, the captain slowly walked towards the figure.

She was here. On The Flying Dutchman. He had never collected the soul of a woman, never had the opportunity been given him. And would he have, anyway? Who was she? Did she come with purpose? He stopped mid-stride and stood, legs braced wide, and found he could not approach her.

"For God's sake, man, get her something to cover up with," he heard the thinking man spit at him.

Davy swung around quickly and took a dangerous step towards him, "Aye, I'll get her something, but not for God's sake." The bosun appeared in front of Charles and shoved him hard, back against the railing. Two more pirates moved forward and each took an arm. Davy kept his gaze fastened on Charles while nodding to a crewman who went over the side of the ship and reappeared long moments later with the American flag that had been flying on the Dreadnought. Charles relented, tearing his own gaze away. The Captain smirked and took the sodden flag from the pirate.

"Haven't seen these colours in many a decade, now." He narrowed his eyes at his crew, "Siluriform!" he barked, and a man pushed his way forward, long, barbed moustaches hanging from above his down-turned mouth, he nodded. "I believe these were your fighting colours at one time, were then not? Cover up your fellow countryman." He tossed the flag to the other who caught it and went down on one knee beside Mariana.

With a quick flick of both wrists he blanketed her in the wet flag, taking one far-flung corner he began to tuck it around her arms but hesitated. "Captain Jones?"

Jones stepped nearer, the catfish pirate indicating Mariana with his hand, "Sir?"

With a deliberate movement, Jones slid his crab leg behind him and crouched down, his pincered hand on the planked deck, levering his weight. The catfished man pulled the flag away from the woman's shoulder and Jones looked down at the octopus inked there into her flesh. He closed his eyes briefly, an emotional vertigo spinning through him.

He opened his eyes and her eyes were open. She was looking up at him, into his eyes.

"Am I dead? Is this Death?" she whispered. Slowly she reached up one hand, then the other, Davy held still, his blue-eyed gaze locked to her own. Her eyes flicked downwards, looking at him, his face, the broad shoulders beneath the barnacled great coat, upwards again, the crusted tricorn, the tentacles moving as of their own accord. "May I?" her words more breath than sound and with long-fingered hands, she gently cupped one, then two, then a third tentacle between her palms.

Davy felt the cold in her flesh as though it were a searing heat, flaring up from inside of her and burning into him, he lowered his head and his tentacles wrapped around her wrists.

"I dreamt of you," she smiled and closed her eyes.

At the edge of the railing, the deep black rolling sea at his back, sated waves splashing against the sides of the cursed ship, the starry night clear above and depths unmeasured opening below, upon a ship crewed by the damned, captained by the Devil of the Sea, Dag felt his mind turnover and a light within himself be quenched. He cast out a mental net, fishing for a memory, a lyric, a song, and in his rich Norwegian baritone, the happiest song he ever knew became a funeral dirge,

'_The waves were white, and red the morn,  
In the noisy hour when I was born;_  
_And the whale it whistled, the porpoise roll'd,  
The Dolphins bared their backs of gold;  
And never was heard such an outcry wild,  
As welcom'd to life the ocean child.  
I have liv'd since then in calm and strife,  
Full fifty summers a rover's life,  
With wealth to spend, & a power to lend,  
But never sought or sigh'd for change ;  
And death, whenever he comes to me,  
Shall come on the wild unbounded sea.'_

Davy felt the woman's hands slip away from him and something inside of him slipped as well, he couldn't grab at it because he had no idea what it was. But its leaving felt as though he'd been carrying a body on his back and finally could lay it down. To rest.


	13. Chapter 13

Dag and the cook bargained away their own deaths and Trevor stood trembling but nodded. Once the deed was done, his face relaxed, he took a deep breath and as it shudderingly escaped him, his entire left side went white, the blind side of the tonguefish.

Mariana stood alone in the center of the deck wrapped in the sodden American flag and Charles was as though tethered to the railing by the will of the tentacled Captain and the strong arms of the two crewmembers holding him fast. He shook his head and pursed his lips and watched Jones' begin his strange stumping step towards him.

"One hundred years before the mast or to the depths," the Captain bit out the words.

"Mayhap, the depths are only what you imagine Death to hold, Captain. Who's to say where I will descend or ascend to?" Charles said softly.

The blue eyes narrowed dangerously, "Yer a thinking man and I would wager there's only room for one such man on every ship and on this ship that man is me. Mayhap," he mocked, "you'll find that your next step out of this Life takes you into Oblivion and you won't even know that your fleshy soul has fed some mindless bottom fish." He stepped closer to Charles and growled down into his face, "I'm prepared to offer you what I've offered these others, one hundred years serving on The Flying Dutchman, but the more we engage in dialogue the less inclined I am towards making good on it and the more I'm feeling that I best rescind any offer you think I've made."

"Charles," Mariana called softly to him and the Captain's head whipped around at the sound of her voice and he took a step back.

"Mariana, no." Charles shook his head but she was walking towards them, the crew scattering in confusion and backing up against the railing, the mast poles, the cargo hold, leaving a wide wet swathe of deck open before her. She stepped past Jones and looked into Charles' face, she smiled sadly at him, then turned to the Captain.

"Have your men unhand him," she looked up into his eyes.

Jones visibly startled but then his face recomposed into the shape of fury, "What did you say to me?"

"I said to have your men unhand him. Now"

His face softened into stunned brutality. "What?"

"Give him a lifeboat and let him try to save himself."

For a long moment the Captain and the woman stared at one another. A live wire of tension snapping audibly through the crew, Charles standing very still on the perimeter and the waves lapping the edges of the boat in a slow simmer. Then Jones threw back his head and laughed. The crew remained silent.

"There are no," he paused dramatically throwing one arm out wide and looking back down into the woman's face, "_lifeboats_ on The Flying Dutchman, ma'am."

And then the sailors laughed and Charles felt his blood run cold. Mariana closed her eyes for a short moment and could hear the hysteria laced through the sound of the crew's laughter. Laughter and tears lashed together for all eternity.

She locked her gaze to his again, "Send your men out to retrieve a raft off our wreck."

Jones nodded at the two crewmembers holding Charles and they each shoved him at one another and stepped back as he stumbled and fell to his knees. The Captain moved sideways and watched as he climbed back to his feet. He and Charles and Mariana stood triangulated. Jones observed under lowered brows how the woman held herself back from running to the man. He scowled.

"Why would I give this man a liferaft?" he sneered, pulling her attention away from the other and back onto himself. She turned her entire body to face him and he nearly reeled backwards from the sheer, inescapable fact that he stood squared off with her.

"I will trade myself, my soul, in place of his," she whispered.

"Mariana!" Charles cried.

And Trevor sidled forward and shouted, "No woman on board. It's bad luck!" And his nose flattened into his face and disappeared as his left eye slipped across the space and realigned itself on the right side of his head. Mariana gasped and Jones looked over at the other man and saw the transformation. He reared back, lips snarled open, "A bottom feeder, is it then? We don't brook much use for your sort here." Trevor lunged towards Mariana and Jones quickly stepped between them and lowered one shoulder to catch him and shoved him back hard. He went pinwheeling against several crewmembers and the Captain turned and roared at them and they leapt upon Trevor and he went down beneath a writhing mass of limbs and tines and scales, screaming hoarsely.


End file.
